Indeed, when his arrival was close at hand, Nurse Bundle and I took an hospitable pleasure in looking over the arrangements of his room, and planning little details for his comfort.
He came at last, and my father was able to announce to Aunt Maria (who had never approved of what she called "Mr. Andrewes' desultory style of teaching") that my education was now placed in the hands of a resident tutor.
THE TUTOR--THE PARISH--A NEW CONTRIBUTOR TO THE ALMS-BOX
Mr. Clerke was a small, slight, fair man. He was short-sighted, which caused him to carry a round piece of glass about the size of a penny in his waistcoat pocket, and from time to time to stick this into his eye, where he held it in a very ingenious, but, as it seemed to me, dangerous fashion.
It took me quite a fortnight to get used to that eye-glass. It was like a policeman's bull's-eye lantern. I never knew when it might be turned on me. Then the glass had no rim, the edges looked quite sharp, and the reckless way in which the tutor held it squeezed between his cheek and eyebrow was a thing to be at once feared and admired.
I was sitting over my Delectus one morning, unwillingly working at a page which had been set as a punishment for some offence, with my hands buried in my pockets, fumbling with halfpence and other treasures there concealed, when, seeing my tutor stick his glass into his eye as he went to the bookcase, I pulled out a halfpenny to try if I could hold it between cheek and brow, as he held his glass. After many failures, I had just triumphantly succeeded when he caught sight of my reflection in a mirror, and seeing the halfpenny in my eye, my chin in air, and my face puckered up with what must have been a comical travesty of his own appearance, he concluded that I was mimicking him, and defying his authority, and coming quickly up to me he gave me a sharp box on the ear.
In the explanation which followed, he was candid enough to apologize handsomely for having "lost his temper," as he said; and having remitted my task as an atonement, took me out fishing with him.
We got on very well together. At first I think my old-fashioned ways puzzled him, and he was also disconcerted by the questions which I asked when we were out together. Perhaps he understood me better when he came to know Mr. Andrewes, and learned how much I had been with him.